Editing Viktor Klima (section)

==Chancellor of Austria==

In 1997, upon Vranitzky's resignation, Klima was elected chairman of the Social Democratic party and was sworn in as Chancellor of Austria, having renewed the grand coalition between his own party ([[Social Democratic Party of Austria]], SPÖ) and the [[Austrian People's Party]] (ÖVP), with [[Wolfgang Schüssel]] serving as his vice chancellor.

Influenced by the "[[Third Way (centrism)|Third Way]]" strategy of other European leaders such as [[Tony Blair]] and [[Gerhard Schröder]], under Klima's chairmanship the Social Democrats continued their move from the political left towards the centre.{{cn|date=August 2019}}

For example, further [[privatization]]s took place, and several public services that had been subsumed under the policies of the [[welfare state]] were tentatively reduced. As a consequence, a high percentage of the party's traditional [[working class|working-class]] constituency, dissatisfied with Klima and his party, redirected their support to [[Jörg Haider]]'s populist far-right [[Freedom Party of Austria|Freedom Party]] (FPÖ). However, just as his predecessor Vranitzky, Klima repeatedly and publicly announced that under no circumstances was he prepared to enter into a coalition with Haider's party.

Following the [[1999 Austria legislative election|elections of October 1999]], in which the Social Democrats sustained heavy losses, Viktor Klima stepped down as the chairman of his party and was succeeded in this capacity by [[Alfred Gusenbauer]]. As chancellor, he was succeeded by [[Wolfgang Schüssel]] from the Austrian People's Party, who formed a coalition government with the Freedom Party in February 2000.